Igniael – Blossom (Core Edition) (2017)

Khannomusic Studios

Bandcamp

• Electronic music 
• Ambient pop 
• Crossover
• Field recording 
• New Age 
• Organic electronica
• Musique concrète 
• Art pop

Comment: Iñaki Barrocal aka Igniael is a musician from Andorra, a very small country (467,6 km²) nearby Spain where the Catalan language is the official language. With regard to the artist`s name I can assume he may be a Basque by his own nationality. However, all the songs represented over there are predominantly sung in English. Yeah, the course of 10 tracks is atmospheric, mostly light-hearted and spiritual (predominantly induced by choral singing and emotive chants) though at times one can hear more murky tones and glimpses in his soundscape as if entering into some of the catacombs in Southern Europe by feeling the ephemeral span of a human being. The Grim Reaper and his scythe are doing their work properly but it should not be surprising at all because the balance between life and death must exist. On the other side, given that those sounds of water flowing and chirping the birds and the particular singing one can imagine by attending a place nearby a (bit heretic) monastery being deviated by the strict Catholic canon. Barrocal`s mystical approach reminds me a bit of the Italian legend Alio Die`s spiritual ambient landscapes. Such sort of music I guess could be a poppy example within the circuit of dark folk/neoclassical/dark wave followers. The enchanting issue is a part of the discography of Khannonmusic Studios.

[Teaser of the day] Nyhos - It is So Omnipresent

Limit Cycle

• Wonky
• Urban music
• Glitch hop
• Sampledelic
• Alternative
• Broken beat
• Electronic music
• Breaks

Artist: Nyhos

Release: #3

Label: Limit Cycle

Year: 2015

[Teaser of the day] GLD8TRZ - Gassed Up

blocSonic

• Urban music
• Hip-hop
• Rap 
• Gangsta rap

Artist: GLD8TRZ

Release: Gladiator Muzik

Label: blocSonic/Archive.org

Year: 2018

Hirotaka Shirotsubaki – After Hours (2018)

Bandcamp

• Ambient 
• Soundscape 
• Electronic music 
• Ambient rock 
• Organic electronica 
• Field recording 
• Musique concrète 
• Ambient drone 
• Minimalism 
• Drone 
• Epic

Comment: this bunch of 15 tracks clocks in at an 81 minute so it is an immense way for any listener to go. Yet it is a blissful and comforting listening experience full of lush soundscapes being embellished with halcyon droning ambient, suggestive concrete sounds, and broad guitar-based echoes. One can hear droning here and there but I would like to call it meta-droning because all of that seems to be somehow disintegrated and scattered yet the listener can perceive an inner impulse coming out of there. It might be there is the centre in the embodiment of a vector and being surrounded by more or less bound particles around it. At times these interactions will develop into very beautiful, even epic excursions (at Radiational Cooling). Most ambient albums being produced nowadays are solid ones but within them some issues are truly outstanding ones. In fact, I do not know what are those criteria to determine it as a great one but let me suggest that the variety inside the track and between the tracks is an important one. A second one is to mingle organic sounds with artificial ones. I have told about mad professors in rock music like Kevin Shields, Mark E. Smith, Captain Beefheart, Ariel Pink who have found their obsessions and daydreamy fantasies right counterparts in sound. But in ambient and experimental music there are also magicians like Tim Hecker, Daniel Lopatin, Vincent Fugère, Dave Keifer, Daniel Maze. Given that the aforementioned aspects are already represented over there it also needs strength and consistency and belief to realize all of that and give us a subsequent quintessential magic through the sound. The Japanese artist Hirotaka Shirotsubaki provides and synthesises all those sonic facets, and emotive aspects like stark dreams, and overwhelming yearning into a vivid whole. Great issue by any means.

[Teaser of the day] Vonsuck - Islami värk

• World fusion
• Ethnotronica
• Bhangra
• Electronic music
• Alternative
• Psychedelic
• Big beat

Artist: Vonsuck

Release: Enne und

Label: Kohvirecords/Bandcamp

Year: 1999

[Teaser of the day] The Book of Dead Names - The Turn of the Screw

• Grindcore
• Crust punk
• Screamo
• Hardcore

Artist: The Book of Dead Names

Release: Live 1999

Label: Uninvited

Year: 2018

Alex Cortex – Invierano (2007)

Miga

Miga

• Tech-house 
• Club dance 
• Minimal techno 
• Deep techno 
• Tech-electro

Comment: Alexander Neumann is an artist from Germany who has been very prolific over the last three decades. I read at Discogs that he has been doing his music with old-school equipment by employing an Amiga computer system with tracker programs and in this way got established his own idiosyncratic timbre and sound. For sure, by listening to this 3-track outing (being released on Miga) you can perceive his charmingly dusty yet exuberant timbre. The result is invigorating and profound in terms of iterative, hypnotic rhythmic patterns, lofty and spaced-out synthesisers atop. Frequently one can hear different progressions running at the same time yet all of that results in coherent, enchanting tracks. All of that seems to be deeply analysed and much work to have been done you can guess an obsessive professor to be behind it by scraping scarce vibes from the beaker within his alchemic ward. That's not funny, it is a serious, mandatory stuff. You can find out many similarities with the Detroit techno and electro scene but not only in terms of sound and rhythms but also in that sense that this sort of sound is definitely directed toward the future. Although Invierano was issued 11 years ago but by listening to it at the moment I have to admit it hums like a space rocket within my ears.

Le Syndicat MMX – Chaos Superior (2017)

Attenuation Circuit

Bandcamp

• Avant-garde 
• Rhythmic noise 
• Post-industrial 
• Experimentalism 
• Leftfield 
• Noise 
• Sampledelic

Comment: Popsonne: portable noise generators, effectors, home made instruments, microphone, Ruelgo: beats, scratch, effectors, microphone, Scramble System: laptop, effectors, didgeridoo, toy instruments, microphone. Indeed, these guys with these instruments are behind the project which started off in the 80s as a cassette label to foster then underground culture (based predominantly on tapes). The result is frantic and highly galvanized through innumerable combinations of noises, electronic effects, sonic techniques and even funny samples. As the title assumes it either. One could imagine as if standing in a scrapyard in the middle of deformed metal artefacts and then the metal meets noisy instruments sent to recycle it. Noises are generated by machines and the result could sound someway like this 7-track outing. For sure, it is deliberately channelized and treated, you can hear rhythmically stomping patterns and electronic growling and droning intensity. As if the electricity were interfered with interruptions and phase disturbances. The issue is a part of the discography of Attenuation Circuit. How could it be described more properly – beautiful shit maybe.

[Teaser of the day] The Poppees - Humpty-Dumpty Heart

• Americana
• Music hall
• Alt-country
• Bluegrass
• Roots music

Artist: The Poppees

Release: Between the Flowers EP

Label: Self-released/Bandcamp 

Year: 2018

[Teaser of the day] Spheriot - Maitri

WM Recordings

• Folktronica
• Alternative
• Musique concrète
• Neokrautrock
• Electronic music
• Indietronica
• Field recording
• IDM

Artist: Spheriot

Release: Bekennerschreiben  

Label: WM Recordings/Bandcamp/Jamendo/Free Music Archive

Year: 2008